Why have housing policies been dropped from election campaign?

Why have housing policies been dropped from election campaign?

Tim Lawless of rpdata.com is one of Australia’s leading residential property market analysts and commentators - today in the group’s weekly Property Pulse he shares his concerns that housing policies have flown under the radar during myriad policy announcements rolled out by both major parties during the lead up to Saturday’s election.

Mr Lawless believes that this is a major concern for voters in the coming election on Saturday. He said that despite a renewed public focus on housing affordability, a growing undersupply of dwellings and rising rental rates, the Federal Election campaign has been very quiet on housing.

Based on Mr Lawless‟ analysis in today‟s Property Pulse, it won‟t come as a surprise to most Australian‟s that the most expensive electorate in Australia to buy a house is Sydney‟s Wentworth which just happens to be home to some of Australia‟s wealthiest suburbs including Point Piper, BellevueHill, Vaucluse, Double Bay and Dover Heights.

Currently the median house price in the seat of Wentworth is slightly higher than a staggering $1.65 million. According to Mr Lawless, it‟s the highest median house price of any electorate in Australia and the marginal Liberal seat is held by Malcolm Turnbull.

The most affordable suburb in Australia‟s most expensive electorate is Woolloomooloo where the median house price is $782,500.

“Such a high-priced „entry point‟ to this electorate would suggest this is a fairly safe Liberal seat, however the seat held my Malcolm Turnbull is a marginal one requiring a swing of 3.9 per cent,” Mr Lawless said.

At the other end of the spectrum is the safe Labor seat of Lalor, which wraps around the outer western fringes of metropolitan Melbourne. The electorate of Lalor, with a median house price of $300,000, is the most affordable metropolitan electorate in Australia based on median
house prices - it‟s also the electorate of our current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and one of the safest Labor seats with a margin of 15.5 per cent.

The most expensive suburb in the Lalor electorate is Werribee South which has a median house price of $425,000 and the most affordable suburb in Lalor is Melton which has a median house price of just $225,000. Based on Census data, Mr Lawless said that Lalor shows a strong bias towards blue and grey collar workers earning slightly higher than average wages.

Mr Lawless said, “At the time of the most recent Census, almost half of the homes in the electorate were under mortgage and more than three quarters of households were characterized as family homes - prime mortgage belt territory where the scale of mortgage repayments is likely to be one of the most pressing issues.”

“The polarity of these two electorates demonstrates the enormous gap that exists between housing markets around Australia and the challenges that Australian policy makers (and prospective policy makers) have when addressing issues like housing affordability and social
housing initiatives.

“As a residential analyst on Australia‟s housing market, for me, it‟s very surprising to see how housing policy initiatives have played what seems to be an insignificant role in the current election campaign.

“Despite housing costs and supply being one of Australia‟s most topical and pressing issues, it seems as if both major parties have mutually agreed to place the issue in the „too hard basket‟,” Mr Lawless said.

Mitch Koper
National Media & Communications Manager
T:           07 3114 9999
E:           mitch.koper@rpdata.com
W:           www.rpdata.com 

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